Hearing

By -

 In Anne Rasmussens's book Women, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia, she brings up how oral traditions are still important regardless of literacy rate.  I have never thought about this before as a topic. Both reading books and listening to music are very important to me. I couldn't imagine not being able to do both those things.  

Her point was that music and telling stories is still very important even in societies where most people can read. I have to agree because, in our society where literacy rates are very high, we still tell stories verbally to each other.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's a nard, and what does it smell like?

By -
Image
What a google search revealed a nard to be Starting on Valentine’s Day, we started reading The Aroma of Righteousness by Deborah Green, explores the imagery of fragrance in rabbinic literature. Two months later, we had Dr. Rachel Herz from Brown give a lecture on her work unraveling the neural processes of olfaction and gustation. The readings and lecture gave the class a well-rounded understanding at how scent is employed in ritual for invoking emotion. As mentioned earlier, our sense of smell is the most memorable due to its proximity to the pre-frontal cortex. Although research behind this phenomenon is relatively recent, practitioners of religion understand the influence of associating scents with divine concepts. In her introduction, Green mentions how we lack a vocabulary to describe our sense of smell, and refer to such using simile, metaphor or simply naming the scent. The explanation for such is that the olfactory bulb is located so “far down” that the circuitry co...
Read more

Natural history of the senses: Synesthesia

By -
Image
 I found it interesting that there were famous artists who also have synesthesia, and had varying degrees of what sense triggered another for them. The idea is that it acts as a sort of evolutionary hold-over and could be how our ancestors once perceived the world something that I find to be fascinating. The section that discussed how different musical notes and letters were each associated with a color or taste stood out to me the most because that is similar to my own experiences with associating some letters, different musical notes, and numbers with colors. While the closest I can get to having others experience my synesthesia is describing what number is linked to what color, it does not work the other way around. While the number four looks purple in my mind's eye, seeing the color purple does not automatically make me think of the number four. Below is a visual representation of how numbers appear in my mind. 
Read more

Memorable Moments: time and place

By -
Taste presentation  Memorable Moments: time and place Dear REL-365-B01-2025, I had the privilege of taking SMells and Bells in the second semester of my senior year. JBK and I planned for me to take this course one year prior while planning out my religion minor. It was a really long year but I am so glad I got to take this course when I did. Class meetings for this course were some of the more challenging and more calming for me throughout the semester. Some days I anxiously sat out of conversations while scrolling through apartment websites and wondering if I needed to look for another job. Other days we made s’mores, celebrated the trees’ New Year, and went on a walk in the Wheaton Woods.  New Years for the trees Pilgrimage to the Bra Tree As always I deeply appreciated hearing from my peers especially when we disagree. I am honored to be seen as a safe person to disagree with. I am thankful for anyone who shared especially in particularly small and vulnerable classes like ...
Read more